Resolution class
 Cutaway model of the HMS Resolution (S22)
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The nuclear submarines of the Resolution class were the first SSBN of the Royal Navy for the use of nuclear missiles . Until the 1990s they were at the heart of nuclear deterrence policy. They were stationed in Faslane-on-Clyde , Scotland .
history
After the United States successfully tested the use of nuclear missiles from submarines, Britain decided to jump into this technology too . The armaments company Vickers-Armstrong in Barrow-in-Furness was commissioned with the construction of five SSBN. Since the first British attempts with sea-based nuclear missiles failed, it was decided to equip the submarines with American Polaris missiles. In 1963, after a year of negotiations, the United States and Britain signed a contract to purchase 80 Polaris nuclear missiles. These were delivered until 1970. They were similar to the American Lafayette class, as the Americans passed on a lot of know-how and the resolution was equipped with the American Polaris missiles.
In 1967 the HMS Resolution was the first submarine of the new class to be put into service and subjected to extensive tests. On February 15, 1968, the Resolution fired a Polaris missile with a 50 kiloton nuclear warhead at a US nuclear weapons test site. Subsequent tests in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were successfully completed during the year. All four SSBNs were in service by 1969; the order for the fifth submarine was canceled in 1965.
For the next three decades, the submarines patrolled the oceans continuously as a bulwark against the Soviet Union. Their operations were always subject to the highest level of confidentiality. Exact information about this has not yet been published. In general, two of the submarines were in use worldwide, while one was on standby at the base in Faslane-on-Clyde . The fourth submarine was also in Faslane for maintenance and repair work.
In the 1980s, the SSBN were completely modernized. a. the missiles were equipped with more powerful warheads. However, the technical problems increased over the years and the maintenance costs skyrocketed. As early as the early 1980s, the government commissioned the construction of a successor model, the Vanguard class . In 1992 the HMS Revenge and Resolution were retired. A year later, the HMS Vanguard was put into service as the first ship of the new, larger SSBN class. By 1996, all Resolution- class submarines were replaced by the four new Vanguard- class SSBNs .
After the decommissioning, the reactors were removed, but it turned out that the hulls still had too much ionizing radiation to be scrapped regularly. Since then, the four submarines have been in a shipyard in Rosyth , Scotland. In 2000, Babcock Rosyth Ltd. in a pilot project with the dismantling of the HMS Renown , in which new disposal methods are used. It is still unclear when all submarines will be dismantled and disposed of.
fleet
- S22 HMS Resolution (1967)
- S23 HMS Repulse (1968)
- S26 HMS Renown (1968)
- S27 HMS Revenge (1969)
- HMS Ramillies - canceled
Web links
- Official website of the Royal Navy
- Detailed information on the Resolution class ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ^ David and Hugh Lyon, Siegfried Greiner: Warships from 1900 to today, technology and use . Buch und Zeit Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Cologne 1979, p. 71 .